Born under a lucky Star
by Alexita
Summary: Independent sequel to SOAF and WTTIR. Lillan Snape is you typical Gryffindor troublemaker. Or? A happy, cared for and selfsecure child has her own demons to fight, just like everyone else.
1. Him

_Prologue_

_Down the street ran a girl, ten years old and at the moment in quite a hurry to get away from the two boys that she moments ago had soaked, soaked in water even though it was in the middle of the winter. She was laughing, because it felt so good to laugh and run, like her body needed to know that it COULD._ _Beside her ran a hooded figure, also laughing, who passed unnoticed by all the spectators of this quite everyday scene. In fact, he ran straight through an old lady at one point. The lady stopped for a moment and looked around uneasily, trying to make something out, trying to understand the strange feeling of an alien presence she had just experienced. But after having stared after the retreating back of the girl – such a charming little pixie of a girl, really, but such a trouble-maker! – she shuddered, as if suddenly feeling cold, and continued on her way down the street._

_The girl, meanwhile, ran on, her course set on the quite small house at the outskirts of Hogsmeade where she lived with her family. She was amazingly pretty, with ebony-black hair that curled in lazy locks around her ears, cherry-red lips and sparkling, dark-grey eyes that seemed to draw you into them. But she was still quite young, about ten and a half, and everything about her more or less screamed out an outspoken childishness and a quite uncommon naïveté, even for one so young._

_The figure running beside her was wearing a dark cloak, pulled down in front of his face so that nothing could be distinguished but white skin and the glitter of a pair of eyes. Strangely enough, the wind didn't blow the hood from his head, even though he was running. Another strange thing was the rest of his clothes. They were dark, but nothing more could really be said about them. They seemed to the alert observer unfinished, like were they thought up in just a moment, and then never really thought through again. They just seemed to be made up by the colour black, rather than any textile._

_They made an odd couple as then charged down towards the girl's home, the evening already dark, the snow that muffled the footsteps of the girl quite blue. One could not hear the footsteps of her companion at all, and if one would look carefully, you'd notice that his feet scarcely left any mark either._

_An odd couple indeed... And with an odd future ahead._

_Not that either of them would really mind if they knew. It is just that right then, they didn't even have a clue._

* * *

Chapter one

Him

(About how my Invisible Friend showed his real self)

* * *

I stomp up the stairs, hoping that they hear that I am gravely pissed off. I mean, here you try to do society a favour, and get nothing but shit for it. And those words about the making of me were ACTUALLY only a joke!

He waits at the top of the stairs. He is a He with a big H, because I haven't found out any better thing to call Him. He has been around for as long as I can remember. When I was younger He did not speak, and thus I didn't really think about Him. I only assumed that He was one of those things that just Was, like the sky and the seasons and Mother and Father. But when I was six, I think, He spoke to me for the first time, when I was sad because the other girls wouldn't let me play at dolls with them. They said I was the wrong type. It felt awful, being looked at and judged to be the Wrong Type, excluded from those who were Right. So I was crying, because that is what small children do when unhappy. And then He came and talked to me.

"Eh... Lillian? Don't listen to them, they are just silly little girls, right? I mean, why want to be their type anyway, when they are... being mean." He was horribly clumsy about it, but I was so stunned by Him speaking that I stopped crying out of mere shock.

"You can talk?" I whispered in awe.

Somewhere inside the dark hood that shadowed His face, I could hear Him chuckling. "Yes, I can talk."

"You never did before" I pointed out like an idiot.

"No" He told me so gravely that I knew that He was making fun of me. "I noticed."

"So I didn't think you could" I tried to explain, feeling stupid.

He nodded, sitting down beside me.

"So who are you anyway?" I tried, getting curious.

"I'm just me. I... watch over you, you might say."

"Like a guardian angel?"

The thought seemed to amuse Him, but I was too small to get why. Now I know that He is far from being an angel.

"Maybe not exactly like that" He said with a choked voice.

"Okay..." I said, thinking hard. (Notice the sarcasm. Really, I was being so childish.) "Like I am born under a lucky star?"

This thought seemed to amuse Him even more, and it annoys me that I cannot for the life of me figure out why.

"Yes, that is a very good way of putting it." There was a smile in His voice, and I decided that I liked Him.

Later on, I naturally found out that no one heard Him or even saw Him. As they started to roll their eyes over me and my "Invisible friend", I found it more and more humiliating, and for a while refused to talk to Him, something that seemed to almost send Him into hysterics. (That was quite fun, actually.) But then we came to some kind of truce, founded by the rule that we would only talk when other people weren't around.

I never saw His face, though. I know nothing of Him really, something that bugs the life out of me.

"What are you angry for?" He asks me curiously. He usually keeps a small distance from my parents, I noticed, or maybe Mother especially. It seems to be hard for Him to be around her, it makes Him sad.

"They didn't like me soaking those idiots, and now I have to apologise to them. Thanks a bundle." It was His idea, so I do have a right to be angry with Him. Actually!

"It was you who did it. I couldn't have stopped you."  
"Yeah, but without you, I never would've thought of it."

"Which only proves a lack of imagination. It was still your choice."

I stick out my tongue at Him, and I have a feeling that He does the same, even if I can not see it. He is quite childish, really.

"And father scolded me for saying something inappropriate."

"What was that?"

I tell him. He chokes.

"But Lillabell, then!" But then He laughs. We have the same sense of humour, Him and me.

"Gah! I hate that nickname. Sounds like a princess or something."

"Oh, but you are. Princess Lillabell of the Paling Moon and Red Sun, born under the luckiest of stars."

"Shut your face."

"Now, what a thing to suggest!"

Man, He is annoying! "I liked you more when you didn't talk."

"You always say so. But when I am quiet, you get worried."

"Of course. It happens so seldom that I am convinced that you have died every time it does occur."

"So you do like me!"  
"Dream on."

I enter my room, painted in a lovely shade of moss-green, full of living, magical candles everywhere. My schoolbooks in math are still lying forlornly on the table, but I ignore them without much of a bad conscience. Really, I already know all that stuff. Why should I study it?

"You never wondered who I am?" He suddenly asks, and I have to sit down, I am that flabbergasted.

"Yes. But you never tell, and you walk around in that stupid thing all the time." I pull at His cloak.

"And you think you are old enough to know?"

"Yes" I answer without any doubt. I am actually more than ten years old. Honestly, I am no baby!

"Well, then... First this has to go..."

And the black cloth sort of just...melts away from Him. He is quite an old man, I think, about Mother's age. More than forty, that is. Well, in His eyes, at least. But His appearance is more that of someone younger, about thirty or so. He is tall, but I already knew THAT. His hair is black, just like mine, and his eyes are a very dark grey, shading to lavender. I guess that he could be called handsome, if he wasn't so old.

"And now..." He hesitates. "Well, you know our joke about your lucky star?"

"It's YOUR joke" I tell Him sullenly. "You never bothered to explain it to me."

"Well... Your mother has taught you the names of the stars, hasn't she?"

"Well... yes."

"And which did you learn first?"

"Sirius" I say promptly. "Because that was the name of an old friend of hers, see? He was a hero, you know. Died defending Harry Potter."

He blushes, looking at His feet. He really looks uncomfortable. "Well... you see... that's... me. Sirius Black."

"No way in hell!" I blurt out. "He is dead, I told you!"

"No, I am not." He says in that annoyingly stubborn tone that goes over my nerves like nails on a blackboard.

"But you are not him! You can't be!"

"Will you let me explain? Please? I can tell you why I am here." I am about to refuse, but I am too curious. I really WANT to find out what He means.

"Okay. But you better be good at explaining." I bounce down at my bed, glaring at Him. But He only laughs, sitting down at the other end.

"As you probably heard, I fell through a... veil."

"At the Department of Mysteries, yes. I never got what that was all about."

His eyes go all distant, like he was looking at something far away. "Well, you see... The Ministry of Magic were studying a number of things at the Department of Mysteries. Time, thoughts... and death. They were trying to make a gate to where people go when they are dead, so that they could study it. Understand it. That was the archway with the veil. And that's where I fell through. But things like that are not for mortals to know, and...they never really managed. They didn't see anything. That's because the veil only goes halfway through."

"What do you mean?"  
"When a person dies, he or she opens a gateway through to the other world, and at the same time, SOMETHING in the other world opens a gateway for them. The Unspeakables managed to open a gateway, but they never got that something, whatever it might be, to open a way back. So it only went half the way." He sighs, dropping his head in his hands. "On that other place, wherever it is, there are Rules. Trying to open a gate when your time is not come is against the Rules. Which meant that when I fell through, I sort of... left the door open after me. Just a crack, mind you, not big enough to come back through."

"So why are you here, then?" I ask, getting more and more confused as He speaks. He really seems to believe in it, but this story is so fantastic that I... No, I really don't know what to think.

"Because of you." He smiles at me. "I just hung there, suspended in nothing, for half a year. And then there came this... knowledge. Of your mother, of her existence. I don't know why I couldn't remember it before, but..."  
"I know that" I tell him, glad to be able to contribute something to his story.

"You do?" He tells me in surprise.

"Yeah. Mother told me. You never came close enough to hear her."

"So why?"

"She did a Memory Sleep-spell and took herself away from your memories as Si... as you, if it really is you, went to Azkaban." He shudders at the name, paling noticeably. "Well, anyhow, she spent all that time hiding, but when you died, or Sirius died, or whatever, she decided to come back. So after having spent half a year being sad, she came to daddy to tell him everything, and released the spell. And then everybody knew again. That's how it was. Actually."

His mouth is open, and he stares at me. Then, slowly, he nods. "Yes, that sounds like a thing that Al would do."

"Nobody is allowed to call her that" I scold him. "She goes all sad then, and father starts to glare."

"Sad? Usually, when I called her that, she went furious! It was our best joke, and..." His eyes go very big. "Oh. Oh, I see." He stares gloomily at nothing for a while, and I grow more bored for each second.

"So, how did you come back?" I finally ask, not being able to take it anymore.

"What?" He looks up in surprise. "Oh, yeah... Well, I sort of... could feel her existence. How she felt at the time, and so on, because I loved her so much. I could do that with Harry and Moony as well. So, I sort of followed them through the war, not being able to do a bloody shit..." He moodily gives my pillow a punch. "And... when she was pregnant with her first children, I felt something like an...opening in the barrier that held me back. Because their lives were coming through the same barrier, just the other way. The way INTO the world. And I was close enough to Alex to feel it. But the opening wasn't big enough. I think it was the fact that they were twins that mucked it all up. Their souls were so intertwined with each other that I couldn't follow just one of them into the world, and to go after two was impossible. I can't split myself, you know."

"So how did you...?"

"I am coming to it." He says, sounding a trifle annoyed. "Anyway... The next time, it was you. And you were just one, and at that, your soul was in many ways...similar to mine. So the opening got bigger, I was able to squeeze through with you."

"You mean that you came out the same way as I did? Like we were twins?" I say with a disgusted grimace, trying not to imagine it.

He makes a face. "No, heavens, no! I just slipped into your world again. At one moment, I was in the middle of all that... no I can't explain it... and then I was standing beside your mother's bed, and I saw you being carried off very hurriedly. It had apparently been a tough delivery, and you hadn't gotten enough air. It was very close that you died."

"I know. Father told me."

"Yeah. So anyway, I'm really glad you didn't. Not only because you are a charming little girl but because you are the only one who can see me."

"Why?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know. I think it has to do with the fact that I slunk through an opening that was not meant for me. It's hard to explain. It's like... I exist through you, through your mind and consciousness. And because of that, you are the only one that can see on the exact... wavelength, or whatever, that I exist on."

"So..." I drag out on it. "You're Sirius Black, my mother's friend, and you are both dead and not at the same time? Is that correct?"  
"Well, that's a way of looking at it, I guess."

"And... and... you don't know how to become... real?"

"Don't I look real?"  
"But nobody can see you" I point out.

"Except you, no. But I am real. Just not the same "real" as the rest of the world."

I look at Him for a while, trying to determine if he is lying or not, but no, there is nothing of that in His eyes as far as I can see.

"Wait" I tell him, getting an idea. I slip out of my room and into my parent's, falling to my knees beside the bed. Under it, mother keeps an old box with assorted "articles of nostalgia" as she puts it. She takes it from there sometimes, to look at and remember, usually when uncle Remus is visiting. Now I quickly open it, sneaking the old photo album out of there, and then close it with a snap, hurrying back to my room. "Here!" I triumphantly lift the album so He can see it.

"Oh…" He breathes. "Has she kept it through all of these years?"  
"She says she likes to remember" I tell him, opening it wide on my bedsheet. "She has shown me some of them. She often says that she needs not cry over them anymore. And then father calls her silly."

"He would" He mumbles, shaking His head.

I look down at the first one. This one I've seen, it's the same as mother's painting. She sits amidst four boys in Julie's and Jacque's age, of which I recognize uncle Remus.

"That's me" He says, pointing.

"I know that, you dolt" I tell him resentfully. The Sirius Black at the picture keeps winking and smiling widely at me, until mother finally steals Remus' book and hits him with it. I look up at the man sitting beside me, and I can see that they indeed look very much alike.

I turn the page, finding a picture taken up only by one of the boys from the former one, bent over his studies with a slightly frustrated look on his face.

"Peter..." Sirius mumbles, his voice strained and sad.

I'm already starting to think about him as Sirius. How annoying.

Then there is a picture of uncle Remus and mother, playing chess. They both look so intelligent that it's disgusting.

"Look at the cute geniuses" He falls into my thoughts.

By some reason, that makes me want to hit Him.

On the next page, mother sits huddled in a blanked, soaking wet from the look of it, and beside her sits Sirius, teasing her and tickling her.

"From her birthday, a while after us waking her up with a little surprise."

I snort. "From what I heard, it was YOU who woke her up by soaking her."

"They were in on it!" He says, looking hurt. "Hell, Moony conjured the water up there."

"Uncle Remus?"

He looks at me blankly for two seconds, before bursting out laughing. "Damn, I'm never going to get used to that. Oh, I am going to have to tease him over that…"

"You can't" I point out tartly. "He can't see you."

He looks crestfallen, and I feel a bit guilty. After all, it can't be that funny not being seen by your friends. But then He grins once more. "I'll make him."

Now He's talking! I grin back at Him, and then turn to look at the other page. There sits a cute, redheaded girl, cuddling a cat in her arms. Yet another familiar one.

"I know who she is" I point out, as He opens his mouth. "I am named after her."

He nods, smiling warmly at me. "It's a good person to be named after. Lily was one of the wisest persons I ever knew."

"Yeah, but then, mother keeps telling me I'm much more like you, mind. Quite insulting, really."

"Hey!" He exclaims, trying to look hurt, and then He ruffles my hair. The bastard!

"Get of my hair! You're messing it up!" I tell him angrily, slapping at His hand.

He grins. "You ARE a lot like me, I believe."

I ignore that, turning the page in the album. This is one I've never seen before, though. It's father, sitting in front of a large, rundown building, reading and apparently perfectly unaware of anything else than the book in his lap.

"Didn't know she had pictures from then..." Sirius mumbles, and I cannot figure out his expression.

"Pictures of when?" I demand to know.

"What? Oh, nothing really... It's just..." He shakes his head, and I sigh irritably. Grownups! Really...

On the next page sits a woman of about thirty years or so, smiling and waving in a strangely girlish way. She looks a bit like dad. She has long, dark hair, and she is wearing a white dress. She has yellow roses in her hair. But something about her seems in some way wrong; some haunted look in her eyes, a trace of emptiness in her gaze.

"Who's that?" I wonder, looking up at him.

He looks strangely distracted, as if not really aware of what me or anything else in this room. "I would guess that's your grandmother. My mother's cousin, I might add" he says after a while, shaking His head and coming back to this world.

"Oh." I take another look at the woman in the picture, studying her more closely. "I never really got to know much about her, more than that her name was Julie and that she died when mother and father still were very young."

"That is probably quite good" says He, nodding.

"Why?"

"Well, truth to be told, I believe you are a bit too young to know that."

Why did I just know he was going to say that? "Boring!" I tell him derisively, flipping the page.

We continue looking through the album together for an hour or so, and by the way He talks about people in the pictures, like He knew them and remembers them, I am more and more convinced that he was actually speaking the truth. Which means that Sirius Black never did die, but is invisible for the whole world except me.

Hmm... This could be fun.

At this moment, I hear footfalls in the stairs, I wave my hand at the lights, and they go out as father charmed them to do. (Really, how DO muggles manage?).

"My mother, you see" I tell Sirius, who looks questioningly at me.

"How do you know that?" he demands. "I always wanted to ask you."

"I can hear that on the way she walks. Like she doesn't like the ground and tries to avoid it. And she probably wants me to sleep by now..." The steps have stopped just outside the door now, I notice. She is probably listening. But that doesn't bother me that much.

"Well, her animagus-form IS a bird, so her walking like that should figure."

"What? Mother never told me that she was an..."

"Hush, not now!"

"Oh no, I'm not going to hush, not until you tell me..."

"She's outside the door."

"I know that, you ninny, I..."

The door opens, and mother pokes her head inside. Jamie Eddings once said that she is ugly. I punched her on the nose for it, and Sirius said some things about her that were really... interesting, if quite pointless, since Jamie couldn't hear him. I can't understand anyone thinking my mother anything but pretty. She has such a kind gaze, and her face sort of... glows, as if she is so happy that she can't keep it all on the inside. That should make anyone beautiful, really. But Jamie is a stupid kid anyway, although father told me that I really should feel sorry for her since she has a dad that drinks a lot.

"Who are you talking to, dear?" mother asks me, looking bemused.

I sneak a quick glance at Sirius, who sits looking at his own hands, his face sad. I feel sorry for him. I've never seen his face when mother is present before, didn't know how much it hurted him. "My invisible friend, mother" I answer, and a small, small grin parts his lips just a trifle.

"Whatever you say, love" she answers with a sweet smile. "Now sleep."

I nod at her, falling back against my pillow to show her that I am really going to sleep. I smile at her as well, before closing my eyes.

Then she closes the door. Sirius chuckles suddenly, and I giggle in return, hearing him shuffling around in the darkness and flopping down on my small couch, where he mostly sleeps.

"Good night, Lillabell" he mumbles sleepily.

"Good night... Sirius."

* * *

I wake up to find Him jostling me gently.

No, that is not right. He has a name now, I don't have to call him "Him" anymore. So, here it goes:

I wake up to find Sirius Black jostling me gently.

"You are going to be late" he tells me. "You were going over to Janna's house today, remember?"

"Can I thwack you like you usually do with annoying alarm-clocks?" I wonder sourly, sitting up.

"Only if you're prepared on me thwacking back." He says with a grin. "You slept with your clothes on" he then points out quite unnecessarily.

"I know" I growl, rolling out of bed. "Get out of here so that I can change!"

I open the door for him, glaring, and he slinks out, still grinning. I slam the door behind him, venting out my early-morning temper on it.

I am really not an early bird.

I change into some moderately clean robes, wondering for a short second if I shall do something about my hair, but deciding to let it be as it is. I pull a cardigan over my head, flinging the door open and running down the stairs, completely ignoring Sirius's call for me to wait up. He'll just have to work for it a bit, hasn't he?

I pull a hat on my head, snatching my cloak, and run out into the brisk winter air, sprinting down the snow-covered street. After just a few seconds he catches up with me, running at my side with a big grin.

"Good morning, Lillian!" calls Mrs. Perham from a window, waving at me. I wave back, calling a quick 'Good morning' over my shoulder.

"Lillian Snape, I want to talk to you!" calls an angry Mr. Stevens, but I just blow a raspberry at him and continue running. I do not stop running until I am at the verge of Hogsmeade, and then both I and Sirius have to stop for a while to regain our breath.

"I am definitely not as young as I used to be" he pants, leaning against a tree.

"No, but you are younger than you should be" I point out, as a thought just struck me. "I mean, you are just as old as father. But you look like you haven't aged a day since that... accident."

"That's because I haven't, physically. There was really no such thing as time in _that other place,_ and when I finally arrived into the world... Well, since I exist through your mind, and I never let you see my face, you never really thought about how it looked, didn't notice if it was ageing or not, and because of that, I didn't."

I stare at him. "Too many words. I got the general gist of it, anyway. Now come on."

Janna is hanging by her knees out of her window when I arrive at her house. Reading. Of course, her room seems to have moved again, so she is only two stores from the ground, but still... Last week she was ten stores up. It is at least fortunate that it's summer in a ten-meter radius around her house, otherwise she would probably freeze to death. There is an explosion somewhere inside the house, and the rooms start to rearrange themselves at the speed of light. After the house has stopped being a blurr of various colours and returned to simply being a building - at least more or less - Janna is hanging just a meter over the ground. The ginger hair is touching the grass, and the hazel eyes are fixed on the writing. She has obviously not noticed anything. I tap her shoulder.

She twitches, looking up - or down, from her point of view - at me. She smiles, putting the book on the ground. "Oh, hello there Lillian. What are you doing here?"

"Ehm... We were supposed to meet today, remember?" This is the problem with being around Janna. She never is really sure on anything, and she has the memory of a goldfish. On the other hand, she is my best friend, we have known each other since we were little, and we make a fabulous team in everything we do.

"Oh, right!" she puts her hands on the ground and does half a backflip, landing on her feet. A few sparks fly out of her hair, falling to the ground. Some really strange flowers start to grow where they landed.

"Overload on magic again" she groans irritably. "I have to get mum to fix it. Come on." She opens what looks to me like a roof hatch, but that it is located where the door is supposed to be. We enter the kitchen, go through a room I have never seen before, and enter her mother's laboratory. It never ceases to surprise me that Janna and her mother can find anything in this constantly changing building. Janna calls it instinct and her mother says they have the right way of thinking.

Sirius usually says that they are just as mad as the house.

"Hello there, doctor Lovegood" I greet Janna's mother. She looks up, sooty-faced, hair in disarray, bruised and wearing a some kind of goggles that magnifies her eyes by almost four times. She is holding a tulip upside-down in her hand and it is making meowing noises.

"Oh, do call me Luna" she says absently, pouring something from a beaker into another and watching in avid fascination as it turns yellow and starts to bubble. "'Doctor Lovegood' sounds like a mad old lady that everyone is afraid of." The yellow liquid turns green and starts to hiss. "Everybody DOWN!" hollers Luna, and we all manage to drop to the floor before the beaker explodes with a sound like a swarm of angry bees. When we stand up again, all furniture in the room is stuck in the ceiling.

Or is it?

That's my last thought before my feet let go of what USED to be the floor, and I fall upwards through the air to land quite painfully on the ceiling-which-isn't-a-ceiling-any-more.

"That is the fourth time this day!" Luna exclaims angrily.

"Explains the bruises" I say, and she nimbly touches her forehead.

"No, that was the golf-balls" she answers, and I decide that I really do not need to know.

"Anyway, mother" says Janna, fingering some kind of a cross between a teapot and a turtle with an interested face "I have an overload of magic again. I think it's the house that magnifies it. You have to get it out before I blow something up."

"What for?" both I and Sirius ask at the same time, but of course, nobody hears him. Janna laughs, and her mother shakes her head as she scans the shelves of the room for something. After a while, she gives a happy exclamation and lifts something down from behind a stack of books. It's a long silver instrument, and I've seen it before. She only needs to touch Janna's temples with the pointed ends, and some of her magic will stream into it, ready to be tapped into one of the mystic devices constructed for holding raw power in place that Luna uses in most of her experiments.

As we leave the room to find the kitchen - apparently some stores up at the moment - Janna heaves a theatralic sigh. "I have to admit that there will be good points in going to Hogwarts. I won't get these overloads anymore. I can SWEAR it is this house that does it. I mean, all wizards and witches emit small amounts of magic all the time to sort of ease the pressure a bit. But around here it's like it all bounces back into me again, so the pressure just keeps building up until I can't hold it inside me anymore."

"But I spend a lot of time around here, and it doesn't happen to me" I point out as we enter the kitchen, carefully stepping over the windows that seem to have decided to take up residence at the floor.

"Maybe you can hold the magic back." Janna shrugs, fishing bread out of a box. "Or maybe you can hold more magic at one time. It could be genetic. Your mother and father are both among the most powerful wizards and witches in England."

"So is your mother, isn't she?" I answer, as I stealthily slip Sirius a muffin from the tray that Janna presents to me.

"Yes, but nobody knows who my father is, do they? He might be a muggle, he might be a wizard, he might be a vampire, hell, he might even be a troll for all I know."

"Your mother should know" I say around a mouthful of apple.

Janna makes an ugly face. "If she does, and that is a big If, she won't tell me."

"Then maybe he is a troll" I say, and dodge laughingly as she tries to hit me with a loaf of bread.

"Trolls don't have reddish hair" she answers a bit testily. "At least I don't THINK they do. On the other hand, I am not sure they've got much hair at all. But my hair colour HAS to come from my father, 'cause my family has been blond for generations."

"Maybe it's a Weasly then?"  
"Hmm... Is that better or worse than a troll?"

"Ha! But genetics have a weird sense of humour" I say sagely. "Or so my mother keeps telling me. But that's because I look like a Black. She finds it amusing."

"Do you? But aren't the Blacks all died-out?"

I send Sirius a glance, and he mutters something inarticulate that sounds like "That's all YOU know..." I roll my eyes at him, turning back to Janna.

"My grandmother on my father's side was a Black, or so I've heard. So I guess I've got it from her."

She nods. "Suppose so. Wasn't your mother's best friend a Black?"

"Yep." I nod, taking another bite from my apple. "Infamous supposed-to-be mass-murderer Sirius Black."

"Oooh, I am _real_ star!"

Sometimes, it is REALLY hard to ignore him...

Not to say neigh impossible.

"I would give quite a lot to know the whole story about your family" says Janna thoughtfully, chewing on a piece of fudge.

"I don't know... It seems awfully sad, from the parts I've heard, and that's probably not even half of it. I told you the most of what they told me, though, you know. There are just a few things that mother of father or both wants to stay within the family. But it's not the most cheerful history."

"It's not about if it's cheerful or not, most history isn't. It's all wars and diplomatic disputes and hopeless love-stories. But that doesn't stop it from being interesting."

"You sound like my sister" I tell her with a grimace. "She almost never tears herself from her history-book. It's sad, actually."

"I think I would like to have a sister or brother" she says, looking a bit wistful.

"That's because you are the only child" I answer her. "You don't know what its like to have to hang around with people that are just a bit older than you twenty-four-seven. The pros doesn't nearly make up for the quos. They're really pests."

"You just say that. But if someone tries to hurt them, you turn feral." She smiles widely at me, and I grin back.

"Well of course. They may be pests, but they are MY pests."

* * *

Here you go. I've changed perspective, as you see, and I can tell you that starting on this wasn't easy. Lillian is probably as unlike me as anyone can be, and writing her is sometimes close to torture. But it's a load of fun as well.

/Alex


	2. Abracadabra?

Chapter Two

Abracadabra?

(About how you can seem to fail a person without really doing anything)

* * *

Nothing really happens during the spring. Julie and Jacques go back to school, and I spend most of my time with Janna. The thing with her is that she is not a trouble-maker at all. In fact, there is not one grownup that doesn't think she's a very sensible and polite child. Moreover, she is inventive and has a knack for logic that I lack. All this together makes her an ideal partner in pranking. I come up with the plans, she finds the faults in it and perfects it. I do the actual work, and she gets us out of trouble afterwards. And then we both have a good laugh together.

You see what I mean with a great team?

Anyway, the summer-vacations start off, and my sister and brother comes back. Both good and bad, if you ask me. The good things are that Julie is great to talk with when she is in the mood, and Jacques can come up with the greatest ideas. On the other hand, when she is not in the mood, Julie becomes snappish and sarcastic, and Jacques spends half of his time buried in his books, and it is really hard to separate him from them.

But a greeting is necessary.

That is, when they enter the house, they are showered with spangles and confetti (a bucket full of them) together with a wonderful potions that make them twinkle in yellow and pink for three whole hours.

"Lillian!" Julie howls and tries to grab me, but I am lifted out of her way by Sirius. Julie blinks, and I grin at her.

"Acrobatics, sister" I smirk, before I dodge Jacques trying to snatch me up from the floor. "Temper, temper brother!"

"Lillian, what exactly have I told you about breaking into my storage?" I freeze, turning around to see father glaring at me.

"Breaking into your storage, dad? Why would you think such a thing?" I ask, my eyes open-wide in a very good imitation of innocence, if I get to say it myself.

"Don't try that one on me, young lady. I happen to know quite a lot about that potion, and you need several ingredients that aren't available to underage witches."

"How can you know it's this potion?" I snap aggressively, but Sirius gestures for me to shut up. Since it was him who helped me put the potion together in the first place, I can only suppose that he in some way knows that father knows about it.

"He's got a firsthand experience of it" Sirius points out, confirming my suspicions. "I should know."

I send him an exasperated glare, before turning to my father, who is simply watching me with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Okay, okay, so I borrowed some stuff. Big deal." I mutter, staring at my shoes. Unnerving bastards.

"Good..." father answers smoothly, and warning-bells start to go off in my head.

"Uh-oh" Sirius mutters.

"Very good. Since you only 'borrowed' them, you can repay these very expensive ingredients by cleaning the house. By hand."

"Aw, dad!" It's the first day with sunshine on a week! Unfair! No children should be kept inside on a day like this!

"You decide for yourself, you know. Now come on. Lunch."

And he turns around and leaves, muttering under his breath.

"No hard feelings?" I suggest pleadingly to my sister and brother, both glaring down at me - damn their tallness! - in a way that suggests that I maybe just should get out of the way and lay low for a while.

And then they both start laughing, and I feel a bit sheepish for a few seconds, before doubling over as well. It is nice to have them back. Not that I am going to admit that to them.

Or give them the antidote for the potion, for that matter.

* * *

When July arrives, so does Janna's Hogwarts letter. But mine doesn't. Nobody says anything, nobody utters a word about it, but there it is. They all look pensively at me when I am not watching, but I still notice when they do it. And it's very unpleasant. Because I know what they are all thinking, and I am constantly reminded by them looking at me like that, and I do not like it...

I eavesdrop on a conversation between my parents:

"I don't know, Severus. Why would they be wrong this time?"

"I just want to make sure! Just in case..." he sighs. "She will have a very tough time if they are right, won't she?"

"I know, love. But..." mother's voice goes lower, and I can't hear anything more. Shrugging, since that didn't make sense at ALL, I leave them both to whisper as much as they want to.

Later, I find out that father is going to speak to headmaster Phileandros to see if something has gone wrong, which I suppose explains what they were talking about, but I am not sure I like it. It seems a bit... desperate. My father doesn't do desperate things unless there really is a call for being... well, desperate.

And when he arrives at home one evening looking very, very grave, and I see him and mother having one of those quiet conversations that consists of looks and words that only they can hear, I know I am screwed.

Rising up numbly, I leave the room before anyone can stop me, running up the stairs to my room and throwing myself on the bed.

So…

I'm officially a squib.

Great.

I stare up at the ceiling for a few moments, before the first sob breaks loose, and I curl up with my arms wrapped around my knees.

Yes, of course I'm crying. Even if I promised myself not to when I first understood there was a chance, I can't help it now. Not that I am that sad about not having magic, I have been alright so far. But mother and father must be so very disappointed...

I dry my tears away, but they just keep coming. Father, although he tries to act so calm about this, is not. He must hate me for what I am now. He is so very proud over being a wizard of one of the old families, I bloody KNOW that, and then he ends up with someone like me for a daughter.

He must be so ashamed.

And they are both famous for being so powerful, they are the bloody stuff of legends. They are War-Heroes. Among The Most Powerful Witches And Wizards In England. And so on, and so forth. And I want so very, very much to make them proud of me, but it's impossible now.

They must hate me.

When people find out, they will both be laughed at. Ridiculed. They will have to stand seeing people looking down at me _all the time_. What parent wants that? What parent can want someone like me?

Sirius makes helpless, crooning noises that I guess are supposed to be comforting, patting my back and padding my tears away with the hem of his robe. He seems not to know what to say, how to handle this, and I am very glad for that. I don't think I could handle talking to him at the moment.

"Lillian?"

I swiftly pull the blanket over my head, burrowing my head in my pillow. I do not want to speak to father at the moment, don't want to hear him say that it's alright and at the same time hearing the disappointment in his voice. I feel Sirius' steady hand through the blanket, comforting and encouraging. He understands.

I cannot hear father approaching, but his footfalls were always very silent. I just feel him sitting down on the edge of the bed, waiting. For some drawn-out moments, silence rules the room.

"You are not going to come out of there, are you?" He finally asks, sounding a bit impatient and annoyed.

I don't answer, let my silence speak for itself.

"Are you upset?"

And he's supposed to be my father! Would I be skulking under a blanket if I wasn't? I hear Sirius mutter something indistinct under his breath, probably something echoing my thoughts quite perfectly.

Father sighs, and a tentative hand touches my shoulder, coincidentally at the _exact same_ spot where Sirius' rests his hand, something that makes me feel like there's _two_ of me instead of just plain ordinary _one_.

Father never was much for contact. Sure, he hugs us sometimes, and usually pats our heads or so when he thinks we've done well. But he is… unsure, most of the time. Mother tells us that he doesn't know how a father should act when it comes to that, since his father was really nasty, and since he hasn't had very many people touching him in a nice manner over the years.

"Things are going to get… complicated. All your friends... well, you've grown up in a magical community after all." He sounds stern when he speaks next. "But it will not handicap you so very badly unless you choose to be handicapped." He once more falls silent, as if expecting me to say something. But I clamp my mouth and eyes shut. There is something in his voice, something he is pushing back. Anger and shame, probably.

He sighs irritably when he realises that I am not going to speak.

"Look, I've talked to the Headmaster. He agrees with me that there are a great many subjects that you can take without actually being able to do any magic. Astronomy, for example. The theoretical part of Defence Against the Dark Arts. And you are very good with potions, extraordinarily so, although heavens knows why, since I most certainly wouldn't put all that dangerous knowledge in the head of an irresponsible little girl, and my books on the subject I keep very firmly under lock and key. But he owes me quite a lot of favours. You are granted a place at Hogwarts of you want it. It's not going to be easy. People will probably bully you about it, and there is nothing that can be done about that. But you will get a chance very few in your position were ever given. It's your choice."

Finally, I am angry enough to break loose. I sit up, glaring at him through those annoying tears that just keep spilling over my cheeks. "I don't care! I don't want to know that everything will be… theoretically okay! I don't give a damn about magic, and that's why you… why you hate me. Isn't it?"

He just looks at me, silently. I sit tense and angry and hope that he will look away, finally admit that he is ashamed of me and then just GO AWAY.

But he doesn't. He just moves closer to me, starting to dry the tears of my face and putting my hair back in order. "You silly little girl" he tells me softly, in a tone of voice that he almost never uses. "I do not hate you. Your mother doesn't hate you. You are just the same as you've always been to us. Hating you now wouldn't only be inconsistent, it would be plain stupid. We love you. Even though you haven't got enough magic in you to make water boil. I promise."

Gently, father gathers me up in his arms and leans my head against his ribcage, behind which I can hear the thudding of his heart. It is not as much a hug as it is an attempt to shield me from the world. Protect me. Keep me safe.

"But… you have to be disappointed" I protest weakly.

"Do you want me to be?" he asks with a hint of the old irritation.

"No."

"Well, stop talking such nonsense then. You will not be my daughter any less just because you happen to be a squib, and if there's anything I am proud of, it's that. Stop fishing for compliments. I love you, and so does your mother. End of discussion."

"Yes, professor" I mumble, trying a smile that father obviously can't see anyway. His grip on me tightens a little bit. I hear Sirius muttering something that sounds like 'Git', but there is grudging respect in his voice.

And hey, things could be worse, right?

* * *

"Janna?"

"Hmm?" She distractedly looks up from her book, tilting her head over to one side. "What is it?"

"I'm a squib. Just thought you should know."

She purses her lips. "Well, that explains some things. Is it a bad thing?"

I should've expected her to say something like this, shouldn't I? I should've gotten used to her – my best friend – by now. But that's not exactly how you expect people to react, is it? Not to say that it's a bad way to react.

"I don't know. I thought my parents would be angry, though."

She actually laughs at me. "Now that's daft, isn't it?"

I shrug angrily and glare at her. "They are proud…"

"Not in THAT way" she decides loftily, turning her eyes back on the book.

I swallow my irritation, since it sadly enough would be fruitless. "Well, anyway, they weren't angry. Just a bit troubled. And I am still allowed to go to school."

She looks up, and something disappears from her expression to be replaced by relief. "That's nice. That's very good."

"I… You think I should go then?"

And she almost looks a bit scared. Scared? Janna? That's odd. "Don't you want to?"

And it strikes me, so obviously clear that I am surprised that I have not thought of this before. If I don't go to Hogwarts, Janna will start out alone. And I know from the whispers that already follow her wherever she goes that people consider her odd, if not as odd as her mother. In the worst case scenario, she will not get any friends at all. At least, with me around, she'll have one friend to talk to.

"Yeah, I want to. But… most people will think it strange, and some will probably be angry at me."

"Well… you'll have me." She looks down at her book, and I don't think I've ever seen her quite as distressed as this.

"Come on Lils! Don't be selfish now" Sirius urges, and I know what he means. Janna doesn't need to be a squib to get those kind of reactions. She just has a problem fitting in.

"I'll go" I decide. "After all, I'm used to people being angry at me, am I not? I can fight. I'm strong, alright."

Janna smiles, and Sirius gives my back a slight pat, a token of appreciation.

"Good. I don't like when you're not around. People don't bother to hide that they are looking. Even those who do not know me. My mother's quite famous, you know. And my grandfather as well, of course."

And that's why Janna is my best friend, isn't it? Not because she needs me, but because she is always so honest about her thoughts and feelings.

Hey, why all these complicated musings? It's not like I've started school yet, and I'm getting all mushy. Honestly…

"You know, sometimes that girl reminds me so much of James…" Sirius says in a slightly wondering tone. I send him a surprised gaze, since he usually doesn't talk much about his past life at all. But he just looks vacant and a bit sad. "When we were alone, there was almost nothing that he couldn't share with me, without being ashamed. A great believer in honesty, James was. As far as it goes for a prankster, anyway." And he gets that glint of something quite unpleasant in his eyes that mother sometimes gets as well when she is talking about the legendary Marauders. When I asked her to explain it, she said that once in a while you have to think bad thoughts about someone, even though you've forgiven him. I never got what that was all about, really.

Janna prods me experimentally. "You still in the same mental plane as I am?"

I shake my head, giving her my best toothy grin. "Levels above you, Janna. Whole light-years beyond." And then she very solemnly tries to smack me with her book.  
And after all, that's the way things should go.

* * *

By some reason, mother takes me down to King's Cross station, even though we live only ten minutes away from Hogwarts. She says that I will understand later. Well, mother was always slightly weird anyway.

Of course, just like Julie and Jacques, I've been forced to promise not to tell anyone who my dad is. I don't mind. I will have enough of people with opinions about me without being reputed to be a teacher's pet as well. It will be a little strange to be called by my mother's name only, but I suppose it's okay. Better than getting both father and me in trouble.

Julie and Jacques have slipped off to say hello to their friends, and mother has already left. She said that I'd be better off doing this by myself. I am, since Janna is going the easy way to Hogwarts.

And then someone knocks me over.

"Sorry, young lady" says the voice of a grownup. "Here, up you go." A hand grabs mine, and I am pulled to my feet. "There, all limbs still attached where they should be?"

"Yessir." I push my hair out of my face, smiling up at a man who seems to be about thirty years old. There is something about him that I just KNOW I recognise, but I can't remember from where…

He, on the other hand, stares at my face like transfixed, looking like he is about to have a heart-failure.

"That's Harry" Sirius tells me from behind my back. His voice is breaking.

Oh. Oh gosh. I don't look back at him, don't want to see his expression right now. His tone of voice is so painfully vulnerable that it is quite enough.

And why is Harry Potter staring at me, then? Oh, yeah, right, except the fact that I look like a female copy of his own godfather, then…

"Hi." I wave uncertainly. "You're Harry Potter, right?"

He nods. "I suppose you saw…" he gestures vaguely, tiredly towards his forehead. Ah, the scar.

No, Mr Potter, I knew who you were because Sirius Black, who isn't dead at all, but merely suffering from invisibility at the moment, told me so. Or not.

"No sir. But you look a lot like your father." Ha! Am I smooth, or what?

He gives me an odd look. "How do you know what my father looked like?"

I grin, and a pained expression passes over his face for a short second. I stop grinning. Man, this is no fun. "There are quite a few pictures of him in my mother's photo-album."

"Your mother?"

"Alexita Neidorsdaughter. I think you remember her."

He looks stricken. "Oh. I see." He seems at loss for words. Well, after what mom told me, he cut contacts with almost everyone that reminded him of the War afterwards. Mom tells me that she's fine with it, that she understands him more than even he probably knows. And though I'm not perfectly sure what she meant with that, I suppose he wanted to stop being special for a while. I guess he just wants to be normal nowadays.

Instead, I give him my best wide-eyed, no-lady/sir-I-don't-know-WHAT-you're-talking-about-at-all-I-am-just-a-little-girl look, and smile. "Why are you looking at me in that odd way?" I ask him. Sirius slaps me on the back of my head, but I ignore him.

"It's just that… you look very much alike…"

"Oh, that" I say in an off-hand voice. "Well, mom says it's in the blood and the fact that whatever god is watching over her has a warped sense of what is funny, sir. Anyway, sir, what are you doing here?"

He smiles at me, obviously a little more relaxed now. "I'm here with my sons. They are starting at Hogwarts this year."

"Are they? I'm too. That's fun." I throw a glance over my shoulder at Sirius, who is watching Harry with such obvious pride that I have to turn back immediately, feeling like I was intruding on something terribly private. "Mom dropped me off, and of course, father isn't here, since then people would accuse us of nope… nepo… something."

"Nepotism?"

"Uh-huh."

"So… your father is still teaching at Hogwarts?" he asks, looking a bit worried. Well, I suppose he's got cause to.

"Don't worry, sir. If he's more nasty than necessary, mother will hit him over the head with the frying-pan."

He laughs. "Maybe I should visit your mother, after all. I just remembered one of the reasons to why I liked her."

"Dad! What's taking forever over there? Sirius is being such a jerk…" The other Sirius, behind my back, makes a strangled noise, strangely like that of a dog that you've stepped on the tail of.

"He just wouldn't keep silent for a moment, dad, I swear he is driving me… oh."

The two boys stop, looking a bit embarrassed that someone else than their father heard them arguing. I am used to twins, considering Julie and Jacques, but these two are identical ones, something I've never seen before except, of course, when I've visited Weasly's Wizard Wheezers. They both have their father's big green eyes and tousled hair, but it's red instead of black. They also both seem to suffer from an overdose of freckles.

Mr Potter sighs. "What is it this time? Alexander?"

"Sirius is being a jerk."

"Hey! It's Alexander that won't shut up!"

"He called me an imbecile!"

"Why do you care? You don't even know what that means!"

"Boys, please. Do try to TALK to each other." Their father sighs, glaring sternly in that way parents always use to say 'There is someone non-family listening to you now, so keep it to yourselves!'. I grin at them, shaking my head.

"Hi, I'm Lillian Sn… Neidorsdaughter. I'm starting at Hogwarts just like you."

They both switch mood in about two seconds. They grin back at me.

"Hi" says one of them, absent-mindedly brushing his hand through his hair. Sirius – that is, Sirius Black – makes another small noise, by some odd reason. "I'm Sirius Potter, and this is Alexander" he gestures at the boy beside him, who winks.

"Believe it or not, but we're actually brothers" he says with a playful smile.

I throw another glance over my shoulder. Sirius has tears in his eyes. I want to give him a hug, like he does when I'm upset, but that would really look odd, wouldn't it?

"Lillian, you infinite pest, the train's about to leave any minute now!"

Julie appears out of thin air beside me, glaring down her nose at me in a way that suggests trouble if I don't do as she says RIGHT NOW. She throws a glance at Mr Potter, and even if I am almost positive she knows who he is, she does not betray anything. She just smiles that tight-lipped smile that makes her look for all the world like dad and nods at him.

"I hope my little sister wasn't disturbing you, sir" she says in that silky whisper that you can't help listening to. As a matter of fact, it's almost like she tries her best to act just like father…

Oh. Aha. She IS.

"She's pure evil, isn't she?" grownup-Sirius mumbles with a certain grudging respect in his voice.

"Not at all, miss" Mr Potter answers, and even though he acts calmly, he seems just a tad uneasy. Julie seems to notice, because there is a self-contented smile tugging on her lips. She's awful. "She has been perfectly polite."

Julie looks down at me, frowning. "You're not ill, are you?"

Veeery funny. "Oh, ha ha Jill, I'm laughing myself to pieces, really. And the train will be off in five minutes, so I can't see what the fuss is all about. You just take care of your business, and I'll take care of my."

She glares irritably at me. "Don't say I didn't warn you" she mutters softly, and turns on heel, walking away with her head held high.

"Sorry about her" I tell the Potters with a apologetic grin. "I think that's genetic."

"And I think you're right" says Mr Potter with a rueful smile. "Well Sirius, Alexander, I suggest that you follow this charming young lady to the train, so that neither of you will miss it. But before" he ads with a grin, as the two boys start to move towards me "you are going to give your father a hug. And that's not optional."

"Aw, dad!" Alexander protests, before being mercilessly lifted off his feet. Sirius – Junior – just grumbles quietly, and manages to keep a little more dignity in the process. A little. I grin, thinking that it's quite the other way around when I hug my father.

And then everything seems to happen too quickly for my mind to really keep up. I just remember lifting my trunk off the floor – earning impressed looks from both boys – and then I am suddenly on the train, looking for a compartment, and an own place in this new, strange world.

Wow, that was deep. School's obviously already having it's effect on me. This is going to be just great.

* * *

(Sirius: Well, of course I know that you love me, Julia. I mean, who doesn't? But it is kinda touching to see how happy everyone are to see me. It makes a man feel appreciated.

Severus: ...and makes his head grow... (rolls eyes)

Alex: Oh, honestly, boys. And Sirius, do keep it at a sane level, please?

Sirius: What? I can't help that she thinks that I am divine!

Remus: Why do you even TRY, Alex?)


	3. Hogwarts

**Chapter Three**

**Hogwarts**

_(About being a slightly different student.)_

* * *

We open the door to one compartment, finding it empty save from one girl, reading a thick, boring-looking volume. She is red-headed and amazingly pretty, with pearl-white skin and eyes like enormous sapphires, and she seems to be a couple of years older than us. Alexander nicks the book from her, grinning. 

"Oi, Stella!"

She looks up, frowning, but then smiles – albeit a bit sourly – at the sight of him. "Oh, hello there cousin. I was wondering who would be so rude as to assault a lady the first thing he did. How silly of me." She notices his brother, and her smile widens a bit. "And Sirius too. The set is complete. But who is this?"

I smile at her, leaning against the doorframe. "I'm Lillian Sn- Neidorsdaughter."

"Ah. So Jacques is your brother?" She arches a perfect eyebrow at me.

"Uhm, yeah" I answer. "Why?"

She shrugs gracefully. "He's in my class."

Okay, so she's a fourth-year Ravenclaw. Good to know.

"Then I know who your mother is" she ads, with a strange emphasis on the word 'mother', as if she wants to point out… something. Maybe that she thinks it odd that none of us seem to have a father. Julie told me that some people do.

"Myself, I'm Stella Weasly, daughter of Bill and Fleur Weasly, although, of course, my mother never stopped calling herself by her original last name, something that I fully support. After all" she says, wrinkling her nose with slight distaste "why would anyone want to be named after something small and…and _furry_, instead of the noblest thing we have, the heart?"

Sirius Potter smiles, shaking his head. "As you hear, our cousin is just as snobbish as her mother always was, but we love her anyway."

Stella just nods solemnly at that, making no further comment. I think I like her for that.

"Can we sit down?" I ask, thinking about what father said about first impressions. Alexander has already taken a seat, and Sirius was just going to. Now he catches himself, looking embarrassed, and I'm sorry for it. It wasn't my meaning to show him off in a bad light or anything.

"There seems to be no way of avoiding it" Stella mumbles, looking reproachfully at Alexander, who just smiles impishly and refrains from answering.

Stella, shaking her head and hiding a small smile, goes back to her book.

"So" says Alexander, turning to me. "You know anyone who's going to Hogwarts in our year."

I frown, confused. "Yes, of course. Don't you?"

"Nah" he shakes his head. "We've lived in a muggle neighbourhood. Father can't take people staring at him, you know. So none of our friends are going to Hogwarts… I think. You can't be sure, of course."

I nod. "Well, most people in my neighbourhood are going. I live in Hogsmeade, you see." It hits me that this was not the cleverest thing to say, considering I am supposed to keep secret who my father is. Ah, well.

"That's great" Sirius says. "Then you could visit your parents at Christmas, and still stay at Hogwarts."

"Well…" I'm about to say that I have to wait for my third year, but then I catch myself. And why should I care about THAT? "Yeah, I suppose I can."

"Believe me" says Sirius Black, who has taken to occupying the floor "you will."

"So, standard question" Alexander says, leaning forward. "Which House do you think you'll end up in?"

I shake my head. "It's anyone's guess, I suppose. But according to genetics, I should either end up in Slytherin or Gryffindor." Ehm, am I being stupid by purpose here? "You see" I hurry to explain "mom was a Gryffindor, but the hat originally wanted to put her in Slytherin."

That wasn't the best save I've done, said the Keeper who crashed into the goalpost…

"Well, we're probably going to end up in Gryffindor" Sirius says with a shrug. "Bloody Weasly genes, you know."

"Not necessarily" mumbles Stella without looking up from her book.

"Yeah, will you believe that woman" Alexander says with a mock sigh. "The first non-Gryffindor Weasly in a hundred years or more. Our ancestors are doing somersaults in their graves. Damned blood-betrayer, that's what she is."

"I think I like her" mumbles grownup-Sirius with a grin.

"But nevermind, really" says junior-Sirius (confusing, ne?). "The best part about it is still being able to use magic."

Uh-oh.

"Yeah" agrees Alexander. "Mother tells us she's awesome with bat-bogey hexes, and she said she could teach us, if we promised not to tell dad. Then we could teach you" he ads, grinning at me.

"Nice and slow, Lillabell, that's the key" cautions grownup-Sirius.

Pff. Hark who's talking.

"I can't" I tell Alexander, as calmly as I can.

"Oh, come on" he argues "it's not supposed to be that hard, you just…"

"You don't understand" I interrupt, and my voice is shaking pretty badly, despite my efforts. Crap. "I can't learn the spell because I can't do any magic at all. I'm a squib."

Utter, utter silence spreads around me like rings after a stone dropped in water, and they simply stare at me, too shocked for words. Even Stella's eyes are wide-open, her mouth slightly ajar, as she obviously was stunned right out of her composure.

Well, either the potion cures, or it blows up in your face, as mother is ought to say. I can only hope that I am at least to some degree a good judge of character.

"Did you just say that you are a squib, or were my ears severely malfunctioning?" Sirius finally asks weakly.

"I am" I answer, keeping my gaze level even if it's hard. I'm not going to look stupid over this. Most definitely not.

"But… well excuse me for being rude, but what the hell are you doing here?" Alexander blurts out.

I raise my chin, something quite pointless, since they are both taller than me. I hate my mother's genes sometimes. "I can study all the non-magic parts of some subjects, and Astronomy, History of Magic, Herbology, Ancient Runes, Mugglestudies, Care of Magical Creatures and Potions don't require it at all. And father says that I can take Divination as well, since it's all a fraud subject any old how." Ops. I should bite off my tongue before it does any more harm. Hope they didn't notice…

The boys chuckle, their eyes glittering. They seem to have accepted it. But Stella's face lights up with a smile of triumph. "Got you" she says, leaning forward. "You three DO have a father, after all. Jacques doesn't let on much, he's so quiet anyway, and I don't associate with his twin, but you have got a father, and you go to almost any means of avoiding speaking of him. So spill it!"

Great. It hasn't even been an hour, and I already let the snitch out of the bag. Terrific. Just bloody great.

Julie would laugh if she knew.

"Look" I tell them, and I suppose I'm a bit nervous… a bit… "you can't tell anyone about this. It would all be a terrible mess, and dad would get into no END of trouble, and he doesn't deserve that since he got me into school in the first place."

"Someone in the school council?" Stella guesses thoughtfully. "It's been forbidden to have parents there since that embarrassing incident with Lucius Malfoy. Is that it? But no, they're all terribly old there…"

"No." I shake my head. "He's not in the school council. He's a teacher."

I can almost see how Stella fits the pieces of the puzzle together. "Of course" she breathes. "When you introduced yourself, you began saying something with an 'S', and then changed your mind, just like Jacques did the first time. And of course there is a likeness between the twins and…" Her eyes are all aglitter when she turns to me. Ha! She could be the new Rita Skeeter, legendary for her uncanny nosiness. "It's Snape, isn't it?"

I nod mutely.

"Wait a second" says Sirius junior, finally managing to find his way into the conversation. "Like in the Potionsmaster Snape, the one that tutored father at school? The famous spy? Not to mention the one reputed to hate all Potters?"

I smile slightly. "Well, I don't know about hate… Mum says he's just being a silly old fool. But then again, she's the only one in the whole world that would dare to."

"I would" Sirius senior mutters, and I step on his hand, making him throw me a hurt glance.

"Why? What's so special about that?" Alexander asks nonchalantly, and I am about to snap a retort at him – he's insinuating that he would, and I won't STAND for it – when Stella interrupts me.

"You haven't met him" she says with a wry smile.

By some odd reason, that makes me proud.

"Okay, so the sum of all this is" says Sirius, counting on his fingers "you're a squib, your father is a teacher, he got you into this school by using his influences, and we're NOT supposed to call him a silly old fool until we meet him. Is that correct?"

"You're not to call him that at all" I answer threateningly. "Unless you want me to beat you black and blue."

They both laugh. "Say what you want, but for being a girl you've sure got some spunk. And isn't it weird, how it all sort of holds together? Like some kind of a chain. Our families, I mean."

I grin evilly. "More like a quilt" I tell him. "Because you haven't heard half of it just yet. My mother was the best friend of your grandfather on your dad's side, plus the guy you, Sirius, are named after, namely your father's godfather, and uncle Remus and Peter Pettigrew. And I have a feeling that your name, Alexander, might just possibly be a tribute to her. And oh, yeah, she also happens to be your father's godmother. Put that in you pipe and smoke it for a while."

Stella looks intrigued, the boys just look stunned.

"Wow" Alexander finally mumbles. "We never knew all that. Father never talks that much about it. He has told us a bit about the Marauders, of course, and given us the hiding-places for all the Maps, along with his old cloak, but usually, he just says that it's best for sad old stories to rest in the graves where they belong. And everything that we've gotten to know about the War comes from our mother."

"And of course" Sirius ads "she was the one who told us about father's parents. And we've read in on it. Or, well, I read in on it and told Alexander." His brother smirks at this. I think I like his sense of humour.

"Well" I think about it "father never was very keen on talking about it either. I don't think he was very happy for most of his childhood, and he really detested his time as a spy. But mother thinks that history needs to be relived and retold, so that you can remind yourself of that you don't regret it - and no, I don't know what that's supposed to mean either. But at any rate she told us several old stories about her time as a marauder, and all that she could remember about the Betrayal and the War."

Alexander seems to choke on a mouthful of air, and Sirius gapes.

"So she was the fifth one then" the latter mumbles. "Father never said much about it. Just that it wasn't his place to tell the story, since he never fully understood it. Father always comes up with complicated excuses" he ads, rolling his eyes.

"You know, that's odd, that she was a girl" Alexander says, frowning. "I mean, calling yourself Marauders is more of a boy-thing."

Grownup-Sirius snorts. "Al would have his hide for that."

I stick my tongue out at him. "Why should boys have all the fun? That doesn't make any sense at all."

Sirius grins. "Watch out brother. She'll bite you if you keep talking."

"Absolutely" I confirm, something that makes them both nod in approval.

"I think this is going to be very interesting" Alexander comments, winking.

And I do have a slight feeling he's right. And yes, I am grinning. Like mad. Or like Sirius. Whatever.

Same shit, different name…

* * *

I will refrain from describing how I managed to fall into the lake, as it is quite embarrassing, and Alexander kept laughing at me even when he and both Siriuses (not that they notice the elder one) helped me back into the boat. His brother just looked worried, Janna sighed and kept reading her book, and grownup-Sirius yelled at me all the way back for being uncareful. 

That actually felt quite nice, even if it was annoying as hell.

But I get to lend Janna's cloak, which was a relief, since I was freezing to death, and no further complications arise. I get a very stern look indeed from the grey-haired Professor McGonagall, and treat her with my best, toothiest grin. She starts, looking at me as if I was a ghost – which is, in an odd way, pretty much the case – and then heaves a despairing sigh. I am not quite sure, but I THINK I can hear her mutter "Oh no, not AGAIN!" in a very tired voice. The way grownup-Sirius beams proudly at that point strongly suggests that I indeed heard her right.

She says something about Houses and the importance of them, yadi-yada, blaha blaha, and so on, but I refuse to listen. Come on, there are lots of nicer ways to die than from sheer utter boredom, right? She also says something about looking presentable, which causes me, Janna, Alexander and Sirius to break down in silent giggles, and McGonagall once more sighs. She looks like an old war-veteran, faced with overwhelming odds.

And then – FINALLY! – the doors swing open, and we are marched inside. Wow. The Great Hall. Yeah, so Julie and Jacques have told me a lot about it, but it never got anywhere near reality.

In a strict row we wait for the hat to stop singing and get on with the sorting, and I amuse myself with trying to find people that I know by the tables. There are some kids I sometimes have played with back home, of course, but not that many. I spot Stella by the Ravenclaw table. Jacques sits just some chairs away, and he smiles at me, nodding. Letting my eyes dance over to the Slytherin table I find Julie, who also nods, but does not smile. She's amazingly good at always being … well, grumpy.

And by the teacher's table…

Father meets my gaze for a split second, and I give him a small, nervous smile. He looks away, as if the thing that caught his gaze wasn't even important, something that is more hurtful that I had expected. It feels unfair.

McGonagall starts calling out the names of the people next in turn to be sorted, thankfully, since I am rapidly growing both bored and hungry. I want to speed the whole process up, but no can do. I'll just have to wait.

"Crabbe, Wilhelmina!" I wince. Such an awful name. Poor sod.

A girl with short, spiky black hair and a strangely _sharp_ face leaves our small group, sitting down on the small stool and putting the hat on. After only a few seconds, the rip opens, and a loud "SLYTHERIN!" echoes around the hall. She stands up, looking proud, and marches off to the table, where she is greeted by her own housemates with loud cheers. I notice that Julie remains quiet. She sits with her arms crossed over her chest, looking haughty, annoyed and bored.

Yeah, and I am DYING from surprise here. NOT.

"Donald, Isaac!" A quite shy-looking fellow with black dyed hair and thick eyeliner steps out on the floor, looking around as he expects someone to pounce at him any second now. He rather collapses backward on the chair than sits down, and the hat barely touches his head, before shouting "RAVENCLAW!"

I watch one after another get sorted. They all seem more or less in a state of nervous collapse, and I am starting to feel a bit giddy myself. Not much, though. I don't really mind people looking at me.

"Lovegood, Janna!"

Whispers break out, not surprisingly. Doctor Lovegood is, after all, a very famous scientist, if also rumoured to be slightly batty. People are _so_ stupid.

Janna sits down at the chair, looking a bit out-of-place and confused, but more than that she looks stubborn. The hat lingers a long time on her head, before finally shouting a resounding "GRYFFINDOR!" That actually surprised me. I would've thought that she would end up in Ravenclaw, like her mother. But she nods at he hat, and her mouth moves in a single word, before she heads for the table.

"Malfoy, Cyrus!"

The tall, dark-haired boy next to me steps forward, a strangely distracted expression on his somewhat pointy face. Well, have a look at that. A Malfoy. Probably the only one in our generation left in Great Britain. Mother says that the pureblood population is dwindling fast. But not so that father hears her.

There is a sudden, empty silence from the tables. His family is not one of the most popular in the Wizarding World. But the Malfoy boy sits down on the stool like was it his own personal throne, and places the hat on his head like was it a crown. He doesn't seem disturbed. A short silence follows, before…

"SLYTHERIN!"

Well, hardly surprising.

"Meddler, Happy!"

Well, that was an unfortunate name as well, wasn't it? A short, skinny girl with big glasses and curly dark-brown hair, looking anything but happy, almost runs over to the small stool, sitting down so hesitantly that you start to wonder if maybe she's afraid the seat is going to bite her on the bum.

There is quite a long pause, before the hat yells "GRYFFINDOR!", and she quickly leaves the stool and hat behind, once again almost running.

"Neidorsdaughter, Lillian!" I jump, obviously visibly, since I hear someone giggling behind me. I send a glare over my shoulder, as I leave to be sorted. There are some whispers about me as well, mother is obviously not unknown.

The hat slides down in front of my eyes, blotting out my vision. There is a long, strange silence.

"…You don't have a single grand of magic in you, do you?" the hat finally whispers, sounding stunned.

"Nope. I'm about as magical as someone's old socks" I think back at it.

"But this is a school for magic! There are rules!"

"Rules can be bent" I answer it, thinking of father.

It almost sounds like it is clicking its non-existent tongue, and I swear I can hear it snort with displeasure. "Very well… Where should I put you?"

I almost laugh out loud. "That was about the stupidest question of the century, right? Where do you think?"

A long, huffy silence follows. "Only one student has ever been that flippantly rude before" it finally answers, and if it had any, it would probably be in a tight-lipped manner. "So I suppose that you will have to follow in the footsteps of young Mr. Troublemaker Black. – GRYFFINDOR!"

The last word is audible to the whole room. I grin, patting the hat and giving it a cheerful "Thanks!", before skipping over to the table. I notice McGonagall putting something that looks like a headache-pill in a glass of water, a pained look on her face. Father stares fixedly at the wall opposite of him, as if finding it highly fascinating all of a sudden, and I want to yell at him.

"Way to go" Janna tells me with a small smile, patting my shoulder. The girl named Happy nods a bit uncertainly at me, before looking away, blushing. Nearly Headless Nick nods at me, a bit too vigorously, since his head manages to pop right off. I stifle a giggle, and go back to watching more and more people getting sorted.

And then, finally: "Potter, Alexander!"

A positive storm of whispers break out all over the Hall. People crane their necks, everyone wants to catch a glimpse of the son of the great Hero of our time. Alexander smiles confidently, but I can see that he is nervous from the way he keeps fiddling with the wand in his pocket. He sits down on the small stool, lifting up the hat. But it barely touches his head before shouting "GRYFFINDOR!" He gives me a big grin, making his way over to us, and the applause is almost deafening.

"Potter, Sirius!"

More whispers, more people standing up to get to see one of the Potter twins. Sirius ignores them adamantly, and I can see him biting his lip. He doesn't like them looking, but he's not going to show it.

This time, there is a long, long pause. The Hall is deadly quiet, and I feel sorry for Sirius. Everyone is waiting, everyone is listening more intently than ever before this evening. The short period of silence stretches into eternity.

But even an eternity must come to an end…

"SLYTHERIN!"

And before the thundering applause sets in again, there is this time a short, shocked silence, lasting no longer than a heartbeat.

Alexander looks thunderstruck. "He… How is that possible? We're TWINS!" He meets his brother's gaze, and Sirius shrugs uneasily, as if to say 'Well, I don't know…'. Alexander looks as if he doesn't know if to be angry or not.

"If he got sorted before you, you would've been the one differing. Isn't that a fascinating thought?" says Janna in a distracted fashion. She's very clever, but most people don't really understand that. They see only that she points out obvious truths, cannot understand that she sort of… changes them with these truths. Changes them in the ways that she wants to. I'm not going to say 'manipulating'. It's such a nasty word, don't you think?

It took me – I have to admit – several years to realise what she was doing.

Alexander looks away, not answering. But he's not going to get angry with his brother, at least. I suppose I can understand his confusion. I mean, everybody usually expects a pair of twins to go to the same house, and certainly everyone counts on that the offspring of Harry Potter must go to Gryffindor. But there it is. You just never know, do you?

Grownup-Sirius gives me a quick hug from behind. "I'm proud of you" he whispers in a somewhat hoarse voice, and I notice that his eyes glitter strangely in the light of the candles. Oh, honestly. Adults are SO sentimental sometimes.

* * *

"Lillian? We want to ask you something." I lift my gaze from my game of Exploding Snap, to meet that of Tilda Bones. I don't particularly like her. She is bossy and loud and she definitely seems to think that she is more clever than most people, an oppinion that I don't really agree with. Behind her I can see the other three girls in my class, looking a bit unsure of themselves, and two of the boys. 

"Yes, Tilda?" I ask her, wondering if I could blow the nose off her stupid face if I threw the deck of cards at her hard enough.

"Why don't you have to go to Transfiguration and Charms with the rest of us?" she asks in a slightly whiny voice. "And why were you given leave when the rest of us had to struggle with stunning-charms?"

Brilliant. I've been here three days, and they are already at my neck. I jump slightly when Janna slams a card down, making it explode. She is looking at me intently, and I know what it means. She is urging me on. Grimacing, I turn back to Tilda.

"Me and spells don't really agree. I lack something vital."

"What, a wand?" she asks in what I reckon to be a very dumb way.

"Well, that too. I was more thinking about magic, though."

The following gasp probably could be head in the Slytherin dungeons. I turn away, angry at them for being so… obvious. Predictable. _Stupid. _Janna sends me a mildly amused glance, her eyebrows raised in a somewhat sceptical manner. She obviously knows what I am thinking, but I am not in the mood. I just get to my feet, and wait.

"You mean you're a squib?" Happy finally asks in a small voice.

"Yes!" I snap back at her. I mean, DUH! "That's exactly what I mean."

"But squibs are not allowed-" Tilda begins.

"That's really odd, then" Janna interrupts, very, very seriously. "I mean, since Lillian obviously is here. She could, of course, be a magically projected illusion, but then I wouldn't be able to do this" she gives me an unnecessarily hard slap over my arm. "So I would actually say that she really is here. You're hypothesis is flawed. I am very sorry. Better luck next time." The funny thing is that she is actually not making fun. She is being blatantly manipulative, turning the situation around, but she is still quite serious.

Ralph Boot – not the smartest monkey in the tree, if you get my drift – clears his throat. "But what have you got to do in a school for magic, anyway?"

"Eh, Ralph, what have you got to do in a school at all?" wonders Alexander, coming up from behind. Somehow he manages to still sound friendly. "Learning requires the ability to think, you know."

Ralph actually laughs, if a bit uncertainly, and everyone seems to have lost their will to do anything. Tilda suddenly looks very lonely. The ones who, a moment ago, were allies, have now turned into some people that just happen to stand close to her. I smile at Alexander. Even though I could've managed that situation on my own, of course, it feels good to have friends that do those kind of things for you. And nobody dares contradict Alexander. After all, they all know who his father is.

To Tilda, I bow mockingly and grin. "Was there anything more?" I ask her.

She mutters something, blushing, and almost runs out of the room, something that makes both me an Alexander laugh. But grownup-Sirius, having previously been sitting calmly on a chair beside us, gives me a disapproving glance, shaking his head. What's up with him, then? Tssk. Adults are no fun.

"They won't keep quiet about it" Janna points out, now from behind a thick book, that I recognise from her mother's library. "Not one of them will. You'll be known as 'the squib' all over the castle soon enough."

"Well…" I cross my arms over my chest, trying to mimic that determined look that dad always gets when he is about to scold me for something. "That's what I am. They'll just have to deal with it, right?"

"The question is" Janna mumbles "if you can handle them handling you." Her voice is absent and distant, but there is an unmistakable sharp note in it. But I just ignore it. What's the point in arguing? I know I am going to be perfectly fine.

After all, I'm me, right?

* * *

"Hey, you! Yeah, you, squib!" 

I stop. Janna, Stasia Peak and Derek Patil slow down hesitantly and stare behind me. But I decide not to turn around, not yet. "What?" I answer, trying to keep my voice as level as possible.

There is no answer, but grownup-Sirius suddenly shouts "DUCK!", and I manage to throw myself to the floor. The jinx goes whistling harmlessly over my head, hitting a suit of armour that yells in surprise, mutters something about kids today, and stalks off. I roll over on my behind, glaring up at the three Slytherin boys, all of them older than me. I am too angry to be frightened. They tried to hit me from behind. Me, who couldn't hex them back even if they had attacked me head-on. Cowardly bloody snakes.

One of them, obviously the leader, walks a bit closer. He is tall and has curly, shoulder-length blond hair. The eyes are a piercing blue, and he is pretty in an exaggerated way. He looks… plastic, and I don't like his smile. It is patronising and cold, a smile that reads books by the cover.

"What the hell was that all about!" I yell at him. "That's unfair!"

"Aww!" says the pretty-boy in a fake baby voice. "Is the ickle squibbie scawed of the big bad wifards?"

"No! She is pissed with the stupid arses who tried to hit her from behind. What are you on about, babyface? Scared I'll kick your sorry little butt around?" I get to my feet, wondering what I'm supposed to do now. I'm too far away to be able to pound his Ken-doll face some decimetres into his head. But I won't back off. That's just not what you do. Especially not with cowards like these.

"Lillian…" Stasia warns, pushing her brown hair out of her face. "Be careful."

The Slytherins, however, just laugh at me. One of the others, a shorter boy with spiky brown hair and sharp blue-grey eyes, sneers at me. "You can't do a thing to us, squib. Do you hear me? Not a thing."

Be careful? So hell I am! I am going to…

"On the other hand, I can" A very calm voice interrupts me before I get to charge, a cool and controlled voice that I recognise very well. And in the next second the three of them topple over, trapped in body-locking charms. Julie simply looks down at them with open, deep contempt, an expression that she has, I am sure, perfected by very frequent use. She is good with expressing her opinion with simply a look. I wonder if she could teach me.

"That was my sister" she points out levelly. "Untill the next time, remember this: Whenever you are picking on somebody from _my family,_ at least try to make an impression of being clever, and _watch your backs_."

She looks up, meets my gaze. Her black eyes are steady and unusually warm when they meet mine, and I am stunned to find approval there. I feel like I've passed some kind of a test, although I am not quite sure what it consisted of. "You did good" she says simply. "Just try to be a little less brave, will you, Gryffindor." And then she gives me her best sneer and turns, walking away.

"That's your sister?" wonders Derek. He sounds impressed, and I don't think I've ever been this proud of snappy, impatient Julie.

I nod. "Yeah. She's not that bad, although she's really, _really_ a Slytherin through and through. She can be quite sulky, but she never teases or so."

"You're bloody lucky, know that?" he replies plaintively. "My sister is just stupid and childish and girly."

"Patil, if you use the word 'girly' one more time, I am going to twist your nose around so many times that it comes loose. Okay?" I grin at him, showing as much of my teeth as possible. When he nods hurriedly, looking almost scared, Sirius laughs so much that he has to lean against the wall.

* * *

We sit down on uncomfortable chairs that probably have seen several decades pass, wrap our arms around us to protect ourselves from the penetrating chill of old stones and dark tunnels, and wait. It is my first class in Potions, and I am not, to put it mildly, in a cheerful mood. Janna is watching everything with that keen, somewhat unnerving stare of hers, and even though her face is arranged in the usual, mildly inquiring look, I can see that she is slightly nervous. 

I throw a glance over my shoulder, and notice that Sirius and Alexander are seated beside each other. They take every opportunity of being close to each other, I've noticed. I guess sleeping in separate parts of the castle and spending much of their lessons apart is quite painful for the two boys, who have always lived their life more or less hand in hand. I've also noticed that they touch each other more than normal brothers and sisters, but then again, so do Julie and Jacques. Maybe it's because all twins sort of have this vague memory in them of the time they spent together in the womb, I don't really know. But I sort of feel slightly jealous when I see them, and wonder what it would be like to be so very close to someone.

But then grownup-Sirius touches my shoulder, and I think that perhaps I at least have quite a good clue.

The door opens with a quite theatralic bang, and father strides in, wearing a look that I best can describe as disgusted boredom. I shrink back instinctively, because having my father radiate so much aggressive indifference in my direction stings, and badly so. He might as well have slapped me.

Julie said that it wouldn't be so bad, but Julie is a Slytherin. Father favourises Slytherins, everyone knows that. And he has really nothing against Ravenclaws either, and that added to the fact that Jacques is a quiet, orderly sort of person that you really don't notice, makes things a lot easier for him as well. But I'm a Gryffindor, I hate not being noticed, AND I know more about Potions than Julie or Jacques do already, thanks to Sirius. This puts me in the line of fire in a way that my sister and brother never was.

"I hope that the lot of you at least have had enough wits about you to put away your wands, because there will be no such nonsense here." I've never heard his voice be so cold before. Sometimes, when he is angry, he sounds a bit like this, but that doesn't come near this sort of taunting chill. And as he continues introducing his subject I can feel my heart sinking all the way to my heels and on through the floor. I don't want to do this.

I feel something cool on my hand; Janna has placed her hand over mine under the bench. Her eyes haven't left father, but she knows me well enough by now to just know.

Ingredients are handed out, instructions appear on the blackboard. I write "Like blow-up without snakeskin?" on a piece of parchment, and Sirius nods. And then I get to work, giving instructions to Janna as I go. Our potion is ready within a quarter of an hour, bubbling along happily in its cauldron. Janna puts up her hand to indicate that we're ready, I stare at my shoes. But as the shadow of my father falls over both me and our cauldron, I still have to look up. There is no expression in his face, and he doesn't even say anything. He just nods curtly, and then turns around to walk away. We were finished before everyone else, and he didn't give us one rotten point.

The injustice burns in my throat and my eyes, and I can see Janna staring at his retreating back like she can't believe it.

"Well" says grownup-Sirius, voice heavy with sarcasm "I certainly see why you can't tell anybody that he is your dad, if he keeps giving you such an obvious special treatment."

That is too much. Tears fill my eyes faster than I can wipe them away, and I hide my face behind my arm, angry and disappointed at myself. Janna pats my arm a bit helplessly, and I can see her glaring daggers at my dad. I cry harder.

And then a pair of strong arms, the arms of a grownup, hug me, and I feel a familiar scent. A calm-down and keep-safe scent. "I'm sorry, Lillabell" Sirius tells me, and he sounds really sad. "I was just being stupid and nasty. I bet he's really proud of you and all, you'll just have to… have to give him time, you know?" He tries to sound cheerful, he doesn't want me to cry. And I have to stop, for his sake. And for dad's. I'll show him I can take care of this. So wipe my tears away with the back of my hand, I force myself to breathe calmly, and I glare at the people around me, daring them to say anything about it.

"Well done, Mr. Malfoy" father says almost absent-mindedly. Cyrus Malfoy, whose potion is looking sluggish and has gone completely the wrong colour, look somewhat amused and quite a bit surprised. I meet his gaze over the room, and he nods at dad and grimaces quickly. My first impulse is to be angry, but…

Well, if dad doesn't treat me like his daughter during lessons, why should I treat him like my dad? If he's going to be a stupid teacher, then it's only fair if I am going to be a hellish student. So I grin back at Cyrus and roll my eyes, and then I mimic my father's most sulky face. He starts laughing violently into the palm of his hand, and I feel a lot better.

A lot.

Then there is a loud bang, and through the green fog that engulfed the classroom I can hear father shouting "FIVE points from Mr. A. Potter!" with something that sounds like triumph in his voice.

Okay, this is **WAR**.

* * *

_A/N: Yeah, I know. Bad, bad me for being gone for so long. Let's just say that school takes up some time. Among other things. But the fourth chapter is almost finished, so I haven't been slacking off completely._


End file.
